SC Cop Fatally Shoots Fleeing Unarmed Black Man! [Video]

(NY Times) A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder on Tuesday after a video surfaced showing him shooting in the back and killing an apparently unarmed black man while the man ran away. The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled.

WASHINGTON — A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder on Tuesday after a video surfaced showing him shooting in the back and killing an apparently unarmed black man while the man ran away.

The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled. The North Charleston mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday evening.

The shooting came on the heels of high-profile instances of police officers’ using lethal force in New York, Cleveland, Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere around the country. The deaths have set off a national debate over whether the police are too quick to use force, particularly in cases involving black men.
South Carolina Cop Fatally Shoots Fleeing Unarmed Black Man 8 times! (*Warning* Graphic)
A White House task force has recommended a host of changes to the nation’s police policies, and President Obama sent Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to cities around the country to try to improve police relations with minority neighborhoods.

*Video taken by anonymous bystander. Released by victim’s lawyer.*

Video has surfaced of the shooting of Walter Scott, by North Charleston Patrolman 1st Class Michael Thomas Slager, which tells a different story to what the police officer wrote in his reports.

According to the police reports, the shooting unfolded after Officer Slager stopped a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight. Walter L. Scott, aged 50, is alleged to have made a run for it with officer Slager chasing him into a grassy lot. The officer then alleges he fired his Taser and that Scott ran off with the taser, threatening the officer.

Eight shots later, Walter Scott falls to the ground after he is shot in the back as he tried to flee.

The video was taken by a bystander and provided to Mr. Scott’s lawyer, and shows the officer retrieving and object and placing it next to the mans body as he lay on the ground, suggesting an item was placed there to support the officers statement that Scott ran away with the taser.

The victim is between 15-25 feet away and is shot multiple times, and no assistance is rendered